On June 12, 2016, Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida was hosting their weekly "Latin Night." The venue was packed with patrons – gay and straight, young and older – from the U.S., Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and elsewhere. About 320 people were inside the club when at 2:02 a.m. a shooter entered the building and opened fire. The ordeal went on for three hours before the gunman was brought down by police.

49 people were lost and 68 were injured others in the deadliest incident of violence against LGBTQ Read more...

“Safe space” is a phrase that comes up frequently in our work — so frequently, in fact, that I had not stopped to fully and truly consider its meaning for a long time. Until last week.

In the LGBTQ community, we think of safe spaces as places like bars, clubs and community centers, where people gather to be themselves, to express themselves, to be affectionate with one another, to seek friendship, support and love. The idea is that a safe space allows you to do any or all these things fearlessly and without judgment.

All of us are reeling from the news of early Sunday morning’s mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida that has left at least 49 people dead and many more severely injured.

As more details about the tragic act of violence have been confirmed, we now know that this was a deliberate attack on an LGBTQ space, and specifically a space for queer Latinx people, who made up the vast majority of those killed and wounded, to come together and find community. It is believed that at least half of those murdered were Read more...

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